MTV cancels controversial ‘Skins’ after one season; PTC responds

“‘Skins’ is a global television phenomenon that, unfortunately, didn’t connect with a U.S. audience as much as we had hoped,” MTV said in a statement issued to the press.

Remember “Skins”? It was the populated with non-professional teen actors, with the script largely written by young people — and if it used the British show as its model, it was going to include some pretty graphic sex scenes and adult language. And, it was going to be set in Baltimore.

Instead, it wound up being shot in Canada, and, as MTV said in its statement, didn’t connect with an American audience.

On Friday, the PTC did a victory lap, claming full credit for the cancellation. Here’s the PTC’s press release, in its delicious entirety:

MTV’s ‘Skins’ Canceled: PTC Marks End of ‘Most Dangerous’ TV Show for Kids

LOS ANGELES (June 10, 2011) – The Parents Television Council® marked the end of MTV’s “Skins” following the network announcement that it was canceling the program after just one season.

“MTV’s decision to put ‘Skins’ on the air was a programming failure of cataclysmic proportions. The network marketed the show to kids and then lied. The producers admitted to delivering kids to advertisers and then lied about their intentions. Advertisers openly supported the show until they were called out for underwriting some of the most graphic portrayals of teen sex and glamorized drug and alcohol abuse that we have ever seen on television,” said PTC President Tim Winter.

Based on MTV’s direct marketing of “Skins” to young viewers even before the premiere, PTC called the program “the most dangerous television show for children that we have ever seen.” As the season began, PTC urged the U.S. Senate and House Judiciary Committees, the Department of Justice and state attorneys general to open an investigation regarding child pornography and exploitation. PTC also orchestrated a research and advocacy campaign to call out each advertiser that appeared on the show, and applauded the numerous companies that agreed the content did not resonate with their corporate image.

“Season one of ‘Skins’ was so full of explicit content, viewers were treated to some form of sex, violence, drugs, alcohol, or profanity once every 22 seconds of air time. Graphic sexual content was the most pervasive, followed by drug-related references and depictions. It took 53 episodes of broadcast programming to find the equivalent amount of drug content that aired in only eight ‘Skins’ episodes,” said Winter.

“The shocking content was trumped only by the fact that the program featured teenage actors and was marketed to teenage children. We are grateful to every member of the public who helped us drive an economic stake through the graphic content on the program, the likes of which never deserves to see the light of day again,” Winter concluded.